No Experience Needed to be a Social Media Expert?!

A recent article appeared at Marketing Sherpa with the provocative finding  - at least, provocative to us who are in this business – stating in sum: 

“Two-thirds of marketers who work for organizations that have not used any form of social media marketing or PR consider themselves ‘very knowledgeable’ or ’somewhat knowledgeable’ about this emerging strategy. Their overconfidence in unproven ability can doom social media initiatives to failure.”  

Ouch!

This research doesn’t surprise me, though.  Even when companies engage an agency, they find it hard to commit because they don’t know enough to evaluate the proposal.   ”Lack of knowledgeable staff,” says the study, is “the most significant barrier to social media adoption.”  We know.  We spend a lot of time educating clients and prospects on why and how to integrate social media into their business practices. 

If it were only so simple as creating a Facebook page or having a Twitter account or commenting on the occasional blog or bookmarking something of relevance or interest…  Many of us do these activities regularly on a personal basis, not connected with any marketing strategy for a company.  However, to do it for a company requires more planning and execution, and also a deeper knowledge of how it all fits together to make the strategy successful as a marketing tool.

Of course, social media goes well beyond just a marketing tool, if fully embraced.  It can play a major role in customer service, new product development, corporate responsibility, and many other areas besides marketing.  But to use social media in this way requires a shift in corporate culture, which many are unwilling or unable to take on, in part because they don’t understand enough about it to do so.   

But now that’s changing.   A new study done in March by WhitePaperSource, published by Michael Stelzner, surveys 900 respondents and finds that 88% say they are using social media, but 72% only  just in the last few months.  This was surprising to me – surprising that so many were jumping in so recently.  Wonder if the downturn in the economy and tight budgets are causing people to look more seriously at social media as a cost effective alternative?  Or, given the tight job market, are more people starting up their own businesses and trying to get traction?  The study did find that smaller businesses are more active in social media.

The white paper goes on to say that most (81%) indicated that the main benefit they saw was increased exposure for their business.  Well and good.  That is a good place to start.  But what kind of time commitment will it take to do this, we often get asked.  This survey also looks at this question and finds that those who are experienced spend upwards of 20 hours/week on it, while those just starting out spend only 2 hours/week on average.  

Now link that thought to the Marketing Sherpa finding that people don’t think experience is necessary. Dabbling in social media with limited understanding of what can and should be done and without spending the time to do it well is not a recipe for success. Experienced social media marketers know that if you are not spending time and you don’t have experienced staff or a social media agency to work with, you won’t be successful.  Using it for personal purposes is very different from the disciplined approach it takes to plan and execute an effective social media strategy against business objectives.

Invest for success.  Don’t dabble!